To Chauncey Hare Townshend, on His Lines Praising the Tranquillity of a River, While the Sea Was Heard on the Neighbouring Shore

O Townshend, could'st thou linger where scarce a ripple played
Around the lily's glossy stem, or beneath the willow's shade,
And did that mighty chorus allure thy bark in vain,
The laughter of the dancing waves and music of the main?

The breeze may tell his story of soft and still delight,
As whisp'ring through the woodbine bower he fans the cheek of night;
But louder, blither sings the wind, his carol wild and free,
When the harvest moon sails forth in pride above her subject sea.

I love to thread the little paths, the rushy banks between,
Where Tern, in dewy silence, creeps through the meadow green;
I love to mark the speckled trout beneath the sunbeam lie,
And skimming past, on filmy wing, the danger-courting fly.

I praise the darker shadows where, o'er the runnel lone,
The regal oak or swarthy pine their giant arms have thrown;
Or, from his couch of heather, where Skiddaw bends to view
The furrows of his rifted brow in Derwent's mirror blue.

But not that narrow stillness has equal charms for me,
With thy ten thousand voices, thou broad exulting sea,
Thy shining sands, thy rugged shores, thy breakers rolling bright,
And all thy dim horizon specked with sails of moving light.

Oft on thy wonders may I gaze, oft on thy waters ride,
Oft with no timid arm essay thy dark transparent tide,
Oft may thy sound be in my dreams, far inland though I be,
For health and hope are in thy song, thou deep full-voiced sea.